Jimmy the Geek

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon is by far the nerdiest late night show on network television. Our Twittering, video-blogging host has welcomed tech bloggers and Diggnation dudes as headlining guests; he’s showcased the latest gadgets—from XBox 360’s wireless controller to the Palm Pre—on his show and we (mostly) love him for it. With the help of Fallon’s co-producer, G4-TV Attack of the Show! vet Gavin Purcell, Late Night is courting that hyper-connected millenial audience—and they’re watching.

So what kind of dorky hijinks was Jimmy the geek up to last night on July 15th?

Alexa Chung, the British model who is hosting MTV’s new daily show, was Jimmy’s last guest last night. As TV hosts, they’re a match made in geek heaven. If Jimmy’s Late Night is NBC’s nerdiest show, Ms. Chung’s It’s On With Alexa Chung is MTV’s most socially networked equivalent, with Twitter commentary running like a ticker across the screen, popular online videos aired regularly and viewers submitting videos of their questions. Jimmy seemed excited because he “loves the show.” A blog post on the Late Night site (which was nominated for an Emmy this morning) noted that she created a “condom tin” to convince people to carry around protection. Too bad she’s taken, by Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner.

Anyway, Ms. Chung, looking much more elegant in a pouffy black frock than her regular Williamsburg-baked jeans and t-shirt look, gave Jimmy a high five and a fist bump before oogling Jimmy’s … gadgets. She pointed out that Jimmy had a screen under his desk, where producers were iChatting with him. “I’m talking to my friends in England, just talking about gats and stuff,” Jimmy said. He also mentioned a new prop on his desk: an Apple laptop. He said he’s not sure what to do with it yet. “We just get it ready to go, but if you ever feel the need to IM me …”

Ms. Chung mentioned that she “Twittered” Jimmy while he was in Times Square, playing Wii with Tiger Woods. “I’m watching you with my own eyes,” she wrote. “This is meant to be creepy.” And Jimmy didn’t respond! Aww, maybe he could make it up to her by friending her on Facebook, where she likes to “stalk” people, she said. “It’s nice for looking up ex-boyfriends, etc. Like, ‘Wow, you got fat. That’s unfortunate,'” Ms. Chung said.

Then came a chat about trends—in socially networking, that is. First there was MySpace, then Friendster, then Facebook. “It’s so embarrassing that there’s trends on the Internet and social networking sites, as if it’s like a pub that went out of fashion,” Ms. Chung said. “Like, ‘Ugh, people don’t go there anymore.’ No one is on MySpace anymore, it’s such a loser thing to do.” “Helloooo,” Jimmy said, Valley-girl style.

So how did Jimmy do? Here’s the score:

Geekiness factor (out of five): 4

Good-television factor (out of five): 3

Total: 7. Jimmy’s geeky chemistry with Ms. Chung seemed to work, but talking about Twittering being “creepy” and “stalking” on Facebook is soooo six months ago.